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The importance of the reconstruction era
The importance of the reconstruction era
The importance of the reconstruction era
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The Reconstruction was a success due to the restoration of the union, however, it was a failure in every other aspect because President Andrew Johnson and the Republican-led Congress failed to protect former slaves from white oppression and failed to deliver on major changes to the social structure of the South. President Andrew Johnson offered pardons to all white Southerners, except Confederate leaders and wealthy planters (although most of these men received pardons at a later date), and allowed them to form their new governments. By granting southern states the opportunity to form their own new governments, black codes, voter qualifications, and other anti-progressive legislation, which tried to reverse the rights that blacks had gained, …show more content…
Congress was calling for harsh punishments aimed to improve the lives of freed slaves in the South. Thaddeus Stevens, a representative from his home state of Pennsylvania, stated that his goal was “the confiscation of their property to a certain extent, both as a punishment for their crimes and to pay the loyal men who have been robbed by the rebels” (Stevens). However, President Andrew Johnson had a different vision on how to integrate the Confederate states. He returned all property to former Confederates who agreed to support the 13th Amendment and pledged their loyalty to the Union, while also granting southern states the right to reform their new governments, which allowed for new anti-progressive legislation to be approved. Many former Confederate leaders were soon returned to power, with some even regaining their Congressional seniority. The Radical Republicans were outraged that the plantation elite once again controlled many areas of the South, therefore nullifying any hopeful change they planned on making in the South. This is a major failure on President Johnson’s part because due to his plan, he allowed southern whites to continue their current way of life and continue their constant oppression of …show more content…
For example, black codes—which intended to continue white supremacy— were implemented in former Confederate states with the idea of replacing the social structure of slavery that was dismantled by the Emancipation Proclamation (“Black Code”). They were intended to solidify a steady supply of cheap labor and to sustain the inferiority complex of freed slaves. There were also vagrancy laws that declared a black person vagrant (homeless) if he/she was unemployed and without permanent residence. This defined person could be arrested, fined, and bound out for a term of labor if unable to pay the fine (“Black Code”). The black codes also paved the way for “share-cropping," which was a form of agriculture in which a landowner allows a tenant to use a portion of their land and in return the landowner gets a share of the crops produced (“Sharecropping”). Many African-Americans clashed with former slave masters because they were trying to reestablish a labor system similar to the one that prevailed under
Yes, Reconstruction was doomed to fail. The first reason for this was that Lincoln started a plan or policy for Reconstruction before the Civil War was over (page 792 of our assigned readings). Lincoln said that "he intended to to deal with the defeated South "with malice toward none" and "charity for all" to "achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves (Page 792 of our assigned readings)."" The first problem with this thought is that who knows how the war would play out? Yes, Lincoln believed that this proposition would help end the war, but was that a good time to begin Reconstruction? Before the war even ended? Lincoln's plan eventually angered many Radical Republicans, and that is how the Wade-Davis Bill was introduced.
Even when the Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, and the black people embraced education, built their own churches, reunited with their broken families and worked very hard in the sharecropping system, nothing was enough for the Reconstruction to succeed. Whites never gave total freedom to African Americans. Blacks were forced to endure curfews, passes, and living on rented land, which put them in a similar situation as slaves. In
In conclusion, Reconstruction failed for the freedmen for a variety of reasons. I believe the main reason for this failure was the inability for the two political parties to agree on what they wanted to achieve. Did they want total freedom for the freed slaves, only partial freedom, or just the rebuilding that issue coupled with unpopularity, the freedman’s culture being rooted in the south, and the freed slaves’ inability to find work outside of the south resulted in a process that took over a century to work successfully. I feel that it is very unfortunate that President Lincoln was killed so shortly after the end of the Civil War. I believe that since Reconstruction was Lincoln’s idea he would have carried it out more successfully than his successors did.
Readmission to the union was a dividing factor between Republicans in politics. Lincoln advocated for the "Ten Percent Plan". This demanded that only ten percent of voters in a state take an oath to uphold the values presented in the constitution in order to rejoin the union. Lincoln would then pardon all but Confederate government figures and rights of citizenship would be readmitted. Radical Republicans opposed this plan, claiming that it was too lenient. They then passed the Wade Davis Bill. This bill required that a majority of the population take an oath stating that they had never supported the Confederacy. The Wade Davis Bill also required more rights for freedmen including the right to vote, hold office, own property and testify in court. Lincoln, wanting an easy transition into a unified country, used a pocket veto so he could continue with his plan. Lamentably, Lincoln was assassinated months after his decision and his successor, Andrew Johnson, took on the role of president. Johnson, having grown up in a poor southern household, sympathized with the south yet, abhorred the planter class. In his Reconstruction plan he issued a blanket pardon to all southerners except important confederate figures who would have to personally meet with the pres...
Although Lincoln and Johnson both passed Reconstruction plans that helped reunite the north and the south, ultimately Congress was not satisfied and passed its own plan. Lincoln passed a rather forgiving Reconstruction plan because in his opinion, the Confederate states had never seceded from the Union. The Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction included a ten percent plan, which “ would recognize them as people of the states within which they acted, and aid them to gain in all respects full acknowledgement and enjoyment of statehood, even though the persons who thus acted were but a tenth part of the original voters of their states” (W...
Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States during the beginning era of Reconstruction, had plans to free slaves and grant them freedoms like never before. In 1863, before the war had ended, Lincoln had issued a Proclamation of Amnesty and Reconstruction for the areas of the South that the Union armies occupied. This proclamation was also called the 10 percent plan. It suggested that a state could reenter the Union when 10 percent of that state’s 1860 vote count had taken an oath of allegiance to the United States and pledge to abide by emancipation. Although this policy was put into place to help shorten the war, it also forced governments to further Lincoln’s emancipation policies and abolish slavery. Radical Republicans opposed this plan because they feared it was too lenient towards the South, fearing that his moderate plan would leave in place the political and economic structure that permitted slavery in the South. Many Congressmen believed that only until the South could be dismantled and rebuilt with more Northern philosophies, slaves would never be able to enjoy the benefits of freedom: social, political, and economic freedom.
The United States had a presidential and congressional reconstruction. Reconstruction was a failure, a great attempt to unify the nation. It was a failure due to the events that took place during this period. It was 1865, black men were tasting freedom, the confederation was defeated, the south was defeated, but the unchained blacks had no real freedom. " A man maybe free and yet not independent," Mississippi planter Samuel Agnew observed in his diary (Foner 481).
The Reconstruction was undoubtedly a failure. The political and social aim of Reconstruction was to form national unity as well as create civil rights and equality for African Americans. Even though Reconstruction laid the foundation for equal rights in the United States, it did not achieve its primary goals. In the time of Reconstruction, many African Americans still felt the effects of oppression and many were still trapped in an undesirable social and economic class. The Reconstruction was an overall fail despite the fact that it was the shaky groundwork for a fight for equality in the years to come.
After the Civil War, in 1865, the southern plantation owners were left with minimal labor. They were bitter over the outcome of the war and wanted to keep African Americans under their control. Black Codes were unique to the southern states, and each state had their own variation of them. In general, the codes compelled the freedmen to work. Any unemployed black could be arrested and charged with vagrancy. The ones that did work had hours, duties, and types of jobs dictated to them. Codes were also developed to restrict blacks from becoming successful. They discouraged owning and selling property, and raising and selling their own crops. Blacks were often prohibited from entering town without written permission from a white employer. A black found after 10 p.m. without a note could be arrested. Permission was even required from a black’s employer to live in a town! Section 5 of the Mississippi Black Codes states that every second January, blacks must show proof of residence and employment. If they live in town, a note from the mayor must b...
One of the first goals of Reconstruction was to readmit the Confederate states into the Union, and during the debate in Congress over how to readmit the states, the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were ratified. The United States had three different presidents between 1865 and 1877, who all had different opinions as to how the actions of readmitting the states should be carried out. President Lincoln devised the Ten Percent Plan in an effort to get the Confederate states to rejoin the Union. In Lincoln's plan, all Confederates, other than high-ranking officials, would be pardoned if they would swear allegiance to the Union and promise to obey its laws. Once ten percent of the people on the 1860 voting lists took the oath of allegiance, the state would be free to form a state government, and would be readmitted to the Union. Many of the Republicans in Congress were angered by this plan, because they believed that it was too lenient. After President Lincoln was assassinated, Andrew Johnson assumed the presidency with a new plan, which became known as Presiden...
As President, Johnson decided to follow Lincolns plans by granting amnesty to almost all former confederates; establishing a Provisional government; and ratifying the thirteenth Amendment to abolish slavery. However, Johnson was not the same man as Lincoln for he was quite unpopular, especially with Congress. As the south was in a transitional period, its politics were changing as well. First, the Reconstruction Act allowed blacks to v...
After the Civil War, the South needed to rejoin the North to become a United States. President Abraham Lincoln was very lenient with the idea of restoring the states with the Union. He developed a plan called the Ten-Percent Plan, which proclaimed that ten percent of the southern states’ population needed to pledge to be loyal to the United States. After Lincoln’s assassination, President Andrew Johnson took over. He was much more lenient towards the South than Lincoln was, giving the South the right to regulate their actions. For example, African Americans could be controlled, but still couldn’t be bought nor sold. Slavery technically ended, but the new sharecropper sy...
On one hand the slaves were free, and on the other hand they were not given equal rights, and they were discriminated for the color of their skin tone. In other words, Reconstruction was a mixed success, which combined both positive and negative impacts. By the end of the era, the North and South were once again reunited, and all southern state legislatures had abolished slavery in their constitutions. However, it some sense, Reconstruction was a failure because blacks were not provided equal rights and opportunities. Racism and segregation did not end at all. On the other hand, there was a huge change to the country as the US was completely in a chaos stage during the civil war. Despite some obstructions, it can be concluded that the Reconstruction was somewhat beneficial for African American. As time passes, many schools and colleges were founded for blacks, and many other doors were opened to uplift their life. Overall, all these outcomes can be considered as a huge
During the debate on whether or not reconstruction was a success or failure, people often repeated that the only success of reconstruction was it attempt at unifying the nation. This was heavily overrode by the explanations as to why Reconstruction was a failed shot at improving the United States. Reconstruction was a success in that it was an attempt to restore the United States as a unified nation given as shown by the drafting of the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments as the South unwillingly pledged their loyalty to the United States government. Some black men were able to gain political power while another document, written by a former slave, illustrated the new life for African Americans and the education provided to them.
Reconstruction has been brutally murdered! For a little over a decade after the Civil War, the victorious North launched a campaign of social, economic, and political recovery in South. Martial law was also implemented in the South. Eventually, the North hoped to admit the territory in the former Confederacy back into the United States as states. The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments freed the African Americans, made them citizens, and gave them the right to vote. Despite this, Reconstruction was unfortunately cut short in 1877. The North killed Recosntruction because of racism, negligence, and distractions.